NGO Partnership Boosts Management Development

Over a 10-year period between 1994 and 2004, the British subsidiary of Zurich Financial Services (ZFS) sent 60 middle and senior managers, along with two external consultants, on capacity-building assignments to nine NGO partners in southern India. Anjaney Borwankar and S. Ramakrishna Velamuri, who teaches entrepreneurship at IESE and China Europe International Business School, examine this particular program in their paper, "The Potential for Management Development in NGO-Private Sector Partnerships." They reveal how the experience proved life-changing for many managers, and they suggest that organizations could do more to capitalize on such experiences to enhance their overall effectiveness.